Official 5th quest? Should we have one?

I'd say so. However, I would like to point out that too many "offical" quests will get old, to the point where they are really no different to custom quests. I'd say that, if we get any more official quests, this should be the last one because the novelty will get real old very quickly. That is unless it becomes a competition that is held every year like the PZC 2-week quest contest that is held annually and each of the winner's quests labeled as "[Winner's Name].qst". Just some things to consider.

As for the restrictions, I'd be fine with small amounts of scripting (combined total of script files being up to ~500 lines, etc), alteration to the passageways, altered dropsets, Custom bosses (Dodongo is boring and easy) and maybe small edits to the subscreen.

Gleeok wrote:This was suggested recently to me, so I figured "heck, why not"?

AlphaDawgs 3rd quest is crazy difficult,. The 4th quest is a very explorative quest with many secrets and some new features of ZC while still maintaining an NES feel.
Zelda Classic is already 13 years old - It's a teenager! - It's already been 3 years since the last contest. I don't see why not.

Instead of having a useless poll, you have to reply here with your thoughts - both on having a 5th quest contest, and what the qualifications and extents of such a quest should be.

Should:
-Scripting be allowed?
-Enemy editor for new bosses be allowed?
-Item drops and new enemies be allowed?
-"Other" be allowed? (please explain)

Again, nothing official right now. Unless there is overwhelming support either for or against, we'll keep this discussion open for a while.

Fx'd.

I say no. The 4th was a stretch.

However, if you're interested in packaging in new quests, these could certainly be suggestions:
New Quest
Demo Quest EX
Hidden Duality: Director's Cut
The Revenge 2
Unofficial 3rd Quest (renamed) (AlphaDawg's first attempt)
Titan's Quest Director's Cut
Maybe some of the 1st and 2nd Quest clones in different tilesets (would require an unpassworded version of 1st and 2nd Quests, I think this would be a good way to show off what ZC can do graphics-wise)

Just my 2C.

-James

It seems Gleeok and I differ in what we'd like to see. To be clear when I approached him about doing a quest contest it wasn't with the intention of a 5th quest contest. I would not like to restrict it to classic tile set, premade, or in anyway succeeding 1-4 in anyway. If that is something people want to do then by all means that sounds like an easy contest to put on if we have the willing persons to host it.

I am not saying anything goes or super epic quests. I would howevrr like to see quests that takr advantage of 2.5 features and the vast amount of tilesets and other resources.

SUCCESSOR wrote:It seems Gleeok and I differ in what we'd like to see. To be clear when I approached him about doing a quest contest it wasn't with the intention of a 5th quest contest. I would not like to restrict it to classic tile set, premade, or in anyway succeeding 1-4 in anyway. If that is something people want to do then by all means that sounds like an easy contest to put on if we have the willing persons to host it.

I am not saying anything goes or super epic quests. I would howevrr like to see quests that takr advantage of 2.5 features and the vast amount of tilesets and other resources.

Hmm.. I might of misread that part. Sorry about that.

You mean something like neofirst then? (before it became all epic and _L_ disappeared) Should it be in the same universe as Z1? Anything close to Z3 ALTTP is realistically just way too much work for anyone to do. Probably the same could be said with other 2D zelda games as well. Also if it's just a 2.5 quest with "new stuff" then there could be submissions from anybody who has made a quest in the last 5 years, and I doubt anyone judging wants to play through 20+ full-length quests.

Doing a Nth quest was a little more ordered since everyone starts with the same template and overworld. Perhaps merging those ideas in some cohesive way might work as well. It's even possible to start over from the first quest in a way.

Not sure, any ideas?

This would obviously take more than one person to do, but being we have C-style scripting and everything, how about we try to truly remake Link's Awakening?

It plays closer to Zelda 1 than LttP does and it's probably very feasable.

It was brought up in my development school as an idea.

-James

Did you not get my last pm? I sent it right? *checks* yes I did. Sorry posting in between moving so expect a little incoherent.

SUCCESSOR wrote:Did you not get my last pm? I sent it right? *checks* yes I did. Sorry posting in between moving so expect a little incoherent.

Yes. I see now. I read this: "I dont think it should be in line with 3rd or 4th", as "I think it should be in line with 3rd or 4th" for some reason. :\ ...eh whatever. There's room for either one.

"Perhaps merging those ideas in some cohesive way might work as well. It's even possible to start over from the first quest in a way. "

That's a good idea. I also said something about maybe having an overworld contest and the something. I lost the draft of what I was going to post And I am just too fucking tired.

Sorry about that ^^. This is why I shouldn't post while half asleep. I would hope to see more people rring in about what they think. The more ideas we get the better.

@Nightmare I love the idea of remaking LA but I don't think such a feat would work in a contest. Also remakes have a habit of dying. There is a lot more work to LA than just scripting too. For instance each screen would have to be altered to make up for the different screen size.

@Gleeok I don't think we should accept anything that has been submitted to AGN or PureZc database.

No problem.

So, possible ideas thus far include:

contest-wise: 5th quest, or, a more modern version with all new features of 2.5 with updated graphics.
community quest-wise: Basically resurrect neo-first, or possibly something else.

With option 1-B: Possible overworld sub-contest. The winner of which, will be the archetypal overworld for the main contest. (Did I get this right?)

Contest or no, I think we should be including quality controlled quests with the ZC download package so that new players aren't left to fend for themselves in the Quest Database so much.
The reason why ZC only comes packaged with 4 quests (including the obligatory 1st and 2nd quests) is a relic of a bygone age.
Zelda Classic was released during a time when 99% of Internet users were on dial-up, and efforts were made to keep the download package small.
The download package is 8.5 MB now: that would have been a 1 hour download for me 10 years ago, more like 10 seconds now.

I am definitely a fan of holding more quest contests where the prize is having your quest packaged with all future versions of ZC.

I don't think that the quest needs to be specifically a 5th, 6th, 7th quest, as I agree with Nightmare and some others that that concept has been played-out.
I DO however think that entries need to be novel creations (nothing already submitted to one of the big quest databases), because the reason for these contests should be to spur activity from quest creators and encourage new people to get involved.
A lot of work happened when we held these contests in the past, because quest creators have a deadline to beat so they don't just meander in development hell. I know the only time I ever completed a ZC quest was during the 3rd Quest Contest when I had a deadline in front of me.

I don't think that community quests would be practical for entry in a contest setting as it's too hard to balance everyone's real-life schedules and varying levels of commitment when faced with a deadline.
I do however think that if a high profile community quest like NeoFirst were to be completed, it could be honored with inclusion in the download package on a case-by-case basis.

I'd still like to get some other quests packaged in with Zelda Classic that are not of the 5th Quest contest.

Before this gets derailed, created a new topic: http://armageddongames.net/showthread.php?95812-Packaging-in-More-Quests-with-Zelda-Classic-%28not-official-quests%29

-James

Gleeok wrote:No problem.

So, possible ideas thus far include:

contest-wise: 5th quest, or, a more modern version with all new features of 2.5 with updated graphics.
community quest-wise: Basically resurrect neo-first, or possibly something else.

With option 1-B: Possible overworld sub-contest. The winner of which, will be the archetypal overworld for the main contest. (Did I get this right?)

Three great starts for just starting to brain storm. I wonder if we should set aside the idea of a community built quest as it would be the most work and isn't really a contest. I'd love to see all ideas. Not at once. We should focus on getting one idea going.

5th quest would obviously be the easiest. I think 3rd quest increased difficulty over 2nd. Did 4th continue this? Would 5th? Should we change the name to avoid implications? Also I would like to see more leniency on editing the overworld. I don't know how strict this was in the past. Could you change what screen link started on? Palettes?

A new modern zc contest obviously poses more chalenges. Overworlds are hard, number one. graphical direction and limitations another.

Glenn the Great wrote:
I don't think that community quests would be practical for entry in a contest setting as it's too hard to balance everyone's real-life schedules and varying levels of commitment when faced with a deadline.
I do however think that if a high profile community quest like NeoFirst were to be completed, it could be honored with inclusion in the download package on a case-by-case basis.

Impractical maybe but I wouldn't want to exclude groups from entering contests. I thinks its the persons own responsibily yo weigh the benefits and drawbacks.

Edit: as always posting more than a couple lines from my phone is a nightmare. Half my post pretty much disappeared. I tried to fix it I hope it makes some sense. I need to get internet at my new place soon.

SUCCESSOR wrote:Also I would like to see more leniency on editing the overworld. I don't know how strict this was in the past. Could you change what screen link started on? Palettes?

I can tell you that during the 3rd Quest Contest the rules of design were extremely strict.
The liberties allowed to be taken with the design had to dovetail very tightly with those taken by Nintendo for the 2nd quest.

Some specific examples include:

- Starting screen, palettes, and sounds had to stay the same.
- No new graphics or mechanics could be introduced. This was controversial at the time, considering that the 2nd quest introduced the walk-through-walls mechanic as well as a few others.
- Changes to screens on the overworld were very limited. Perhaps to 2 screens, and the new design had to be a clone of some other screen.
- Secrets were limited to one per screen (caves, burnable bushes, whistle triggers, etc)
- In the dungeons, every screen's design had to be a re-use of a design found in either the 1st or 2nd quest.

It had the effect of focusing peoples' designs and creating a predictable experience, but I found it to be unnecessarily stifling.
I remember struggling hard to find a way to work some small measure of novelty into my quest, and thus needing to explain every idea to a judge for approval lest my entry be disqualified, which resulted in every single idea of mine being shot down save for my Level 9 being allowed to have two entrances.

I don't know what the rules were for the 4th quest contest. I do feel that a "5th Quest" should be generally consistent with quests 1 through 4, but I think that new mechanics should not be ruled out entirely the way they were in the 3rd quest contest. In other words I think each successive quest should feel like an evolution of the one that came before it.

Glenn the Great wrote:I can tell you that during the 3rd Quest Contest the rules of design were extremely strict.
The liberties allowed to be taken with the design had to dovetail very tightly with those taken by Nintendo for the 2nd quest.

Some specific examples include:

- Starting screen, palettes, and sounds had to stay the same.
- No new graphics or mechanics could be introduced. This was controversial at the time, considering that the 2nd quest introduced the walk-through-walls mechanic as well as a few others.
- Changes to screens on the overworld were very limited. Perhaps to 2 screens, and the new design had to be a clone of some other screen.
- Secrets were limited to one per screen (caves, burnable bushes, whistle triggers, etc)
- In the dungeons, every screen's design had to be a re-use of a design found in either the 1st or 2nd quest.

It had the effect of focusing peoples' designs and creating a predictable experience, but I found it to be unnecessarily stifling.
I remember struggling hard to find a way to work some small measure of novelty into my quest, and thus needing to explain every idea to a judge for approval lest my entry be disqualified, which resulted in every single idea of mine being shot down save for my Level 9 being allowed to have two entrances.

I don't know what the rules were for the 4th quest contest. I do feel that a "5th Quest" should be generally consistent with quests 1 through 4, but I think that new mechanics should not be ruled out entirely the way they were in the 3rd quest contest. In other words I think each successive quest should feel like an evolution of the one that came before it.

I disagree Glenn. Honestly, what made the 3rd Quest contest is when we were all like hardcore Zelda fans. The fanbase of Zelda Classic in today's world doesn't exactly cater for that, and there's only so much blood you can draw from a rock. I don't even think it should be a "5th" Quest, it should be a custom quest contest, using all the new features.

I wasn't around for the 4th Quest, so I don't know much about this, but I think a full custom quest contest should be the big thing, and something other than the classic tileset please.

-James

Nightmare wrote:I disagree Glenn. Honestly, what made the 3rd Quest contest is when we were all like hardcore Zelda fans. The fanbase of Zelda Classic in today's world doesn't exactly cater for that, and there's only so much blood you can draw from a rock. I don't even think it should be a "5th" Quest, it should be a custom quest contest, using all the new features.

I wasn't around for the 4th Quest, so I don't know much about this, but I think a full custom quest contest should be the big thing, and something other than the classic tileset please.

-James

I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with, as I already said before that I thought the idea of an "Xth Quest" was played-out.
I would rather see people be allowed to make full creative use of the features offered by version 2.5 or whatever the latest version happens to be at the time.

Maybe what you're disagreeing with is my critique of how the 3rd Quest Contest was handled, in which case I'll add some context to that by reminding that you were the judge who set forth most of those rules and you were also the one who overruled on my design ideas.

Glenn the Great wrote:I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with, as I already said before that I thought the idea of an "Xth Quest" was played-out.
I would rather see people be allowed to make full creative use of the features offered by version 2.5 or whatever the latest version happens to be at the time.

Maybe what you're disagreeing with is my critique of how the 3rd Quest Contest was handled, in which case I'll add some context to that by reminding that you were the judge who set forth most of those rules and you were also the one who overruled on my design ideas.

I was disagreeing with the strict rules for this time around. Back in the day everyone had their dream of making the 3rd Quest: Now it's kinda played out. That's all I'm saying.

I wasn't around for the 4th Quest and still haven't played it, so I don't know much about it, and I still have Titan's Quest and Hidden Duality: Director's Cut to finish as promises, and game dev school is still eating a ton of time to the point I can't participate in something of that magnitude. And what do I have, six projects? New, New 2, JQ, JQ-2, and Demo 1st and 2nd (not to mention updates)? I have six quests in the DB are going to be, I think I've done more than my share of quests for this project.

I personally like the Classic Tileset and especially the Demo Tileset and classic style quests, I'm a classic NES head, I competed on Twin Galaxies for a while before their morals went south last year. But after talking to a few people here at the school about it, they say someone should go "all out" with all the tools necessary. I'm also not much of an artist and have poor artistic skills as well by far.

-James

Nightmare wrote:I was disagreeing with the strict rules for this time around. Back in the day everyone had their dream of making the 3rd Quest: Now it's kinda played out. That's all I'm saying.

Okay.

Changing gears here a bit, one thing I would NOT want to see is a rule *requiring* quest entries to make use of every feature available.

While use of the new features should definitely be allowed and encouraged, forcing people to shoe-horn a checklist of features into their quest would run the risk of making the quests feel unnecessarily gimmicky.
The quests should be judged on how they stand up as a whole... someone could hypothetically make a quest that is light on new features but plays as a better overall experience than the other entries, and I think that would be OK.

For those who didn't play the 3rd/4th quest:

The 3rd quest was "spiritually" similar to the NES while increasing the various challenge/layout elements about as proportional as the 2cd quest did for the first. Apparently there were a strict set of rules that had to be obeyed while designing a 3rd quest entry also.

For the 4th quest, the rules were much more lenient. The 4th introduced Boss keys, more liberal dungeon design, item/shop placement, and use of the enemy editor.

Personally, I don't think the 4th should be the last one. Difficulty-wise it's about the equivalent of the 2cd quest, and there's just too many cool ways to push it to the next level. It would be a little anti-climactic to leave it there. There's tons of new "gimmicks" that 2.5 would be able to add, even without scripting, such as how the Stalfos in the 2cd quest now shot swords and the bubbles were a completely new type by being split into red/blue, and so forth.

I say, it should go out with a bang. You can use whatever features you want as long as it fits in a cohesive manner.

Gleeok wrote:
Personally, I don't think the 4th should be the last one. Difficulty-wise it's about the equivalent of the 2cd quest, and there's just too many cool ways to push it to the next level. It would be a little anti-climactic to leave it there. There's tons of new "gimmicks" that 2.5 would be able to add, even without scripting, such as how the Stalfos in the 2cd quest now shot swords and the bubbles were a completely new type by being split into red/blue, and so forth.

I say, it should go out with a bang. You can use whatever features you want as long as it fits in a cohesive manner.

Despite my original and painfully obvious bias toward a more modern contest I am actually warming up to the idea of a 5th quest. Keep in mind we don't actually have to pick one or the other. The question actually would come down to "Would 5th quest have the needed support?" You know what is great for determining that, Gleeok? A poll. 😃

Glenn the Great wrote:Okay.

Changing gears here a bit, one thing I would NOT want to see is a rule *requiring* quest entries to make use of every feature available.

While use of the new features should definitely be allowed and encouraged, forcing people to shoe-horn a checklist of features into their quest would run the risk of making the quests feel unnecessarily gimmicky.
The quests should be judged on how they stand up as a whole... someone could hypothetically make a quest that is light on new features but plays as a better overall experience than the other entries, and I think that would be OK.

I wouldn't want to require use of EVERY new feature but I think new feature requirements would not be unreasonable. Contests use requirements all the time to challenge entrants and to ensure the end product isnt just of great quality but original and characteristic(if that is the right word). For instance I wouldn't mind seeing a minimum set of rules to highlight 2.5's most notable features similar to:

* Must use enemy editor to create at least 2 new dungeon enemies
* Must use enemy editor to create at least 1 new dungeon boss
* Must use item editor to make at least 1 new item
* Must make use of "suchandsuch.z" script

I don't think these requiremnts would be unreasonable in either contest(now refered to as Nth Quest and Proto Quest). For instance "new" doesn't necesarilly mean completely original. An octorock that shoots swords and a slingshot(bow) that shoots rocks instead of arrows would be "new". It wouldn't win you any points with whoever is judging but it satisfies the requirements and doesnt overly burden the quest maker. "suchandsuch.z" could be a simple script like Item Message script or Sign Post script or even both. Neither are hard to implement.

For an Nth Quest contest obviously the restrictions to keep it in line with 1-4th would still be around in a minimal sense. I would say overworld changes would have to be approved by "judges" unless explicitly allowed. For instance if someone wanted to swap one chunk of the map with another it would depend on how well it was implemented and if the resulting change was something that wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb in Zelda1. The graveyard is now on the right side of the map now but looks as if it was meant to be there. Dungeon design would have to be Z1 style and any liberties taken with it would have to not disrupt that. This way we ensure it has the feel of 1st quest gameplay. I personally wouldn't want to see too high of difficulty. High difficulty is great for Z1 enthusiasts but not for most of the ZC community.

For a Proto Quest overworld I think it would have to be an open overworld where 90% is accessible without making use of items. It should have at least 4 distinct areas (forest, mountain, lake/sea, desert) and a consistent look and feel. The whole idea would be that the overworld would be easily used as a base for future quest designers. Maybe even restricting the number of layers that can be used and how.

If we have a contest where the entire quest is built from scratch I think it could use most of the same requirements with a little more leniency. Maybe set a minimum and maximum number of [freeform] dungeons. Limit the size of the overworld. Or something.

just some ideas

SUCCESSOR wrote:Despite my original and painfully obvious bias toward a more modern contest I am actually warming up to the idea of a 5th quest. Keep in mind we don't actually have to pick one or the other. The question actually would come down to "Would 5th quest have the needed support?" You know what is great for determining that, Gleeok? A poll. 😃

Alright, poll added!

Vote for ANY/ALL you want. The purpose is simply to weed out any unappealing options, unless there is a landslide victory of course.

SUCCESSOR wrote:
snip

There of course would be rules for a 5th quest. For example you would have to incorporate ideas and mechanics from previous quests. 4th quest introduced stronger bosses and boss keys, to name a few, so those would be mandatory. (I can't remember if there was new enemies in that one though...been a while)

SUCCESSOR wrote:
tuck

For difficulty - I'm a fan of ramping it up a bit since the people likely to play them in the first place are the more hardcore, or Z1-type enthusiasts, as you say. Chances are the meek have never even beaten 2cd-quest, let alone the 3th or 4th (Someone had to say it.)

As a suggestion for voting, have your Quest Players Club play the quests (1 each) and put Let's Play up on YouTube. Then, you can have the judges watch and make their decision based on what they see. The Quest Players' Club should be instructed to play like bug testers to show all the new features and not just a speed run. It'd keep everyone's time fair and get it done reasonably fast (providing the dev time for the contest doesn't take a year) and avoid situations if someone gets busy at school/work and can't complete the project.

-James

Nightmare wrote:As a suggestion for voting, have your Quest Players Club play the quests (1 each) and put Let's Play up on YouTube. Then, you can have the judges watch and make their decision based on what they see. The Quest Players' Club should be instructed to play like bug testers to show all the new features and not just a speed run. It'd keep everyone's time fair and get it done reasonably fast (providing the dev time for the contest doesn't take a year) and avoid situations if someone gets busy at school/work and can't complete the project.

-James

That is a horrible idea.
You can't judge a contest by watching peoples shitty LPs. I would rather spend 4 hours playing a quest than watch someone wander around for 5 hours! :P

Usually a reasonable amount of time is allocated to play a quest though - at least two weeks each as a lower bound.

[edit] Another possibility is to do both. We could do a 5th quest contest while organizing something else. Realistically options 2 or 3 are going to take a lot longer to amass resources, create content, and beta test.

Gleeok wrote:That is a horrible idea.
You can't judge a contest by watching peoples shitty LPs. I would rather spend 4 hours playing a quest than watch someone wander around for 5 hours! :P

Usually a reasonable amount of time is allocated to play a quest though - at least two weeks each as a lower bound.

[edit] Another possibility is to do both. We could do a 5th quest contest while organizing something else. Realistically options 2 or 3 are going to take a lot longer to amass resources, create content, and beta test.

Well, I'm just saying that's how I got into trouble when I was designing the 3rd Quest rules: Just passing that on so that the same mistakes don't repeat themselves.

How about both a 5th Quest contest AND a "Tiny Quest" contest?

-James

Gleeok wrote:
For difficulty - I'm a fan of ramping it up a bit since the people likely to play them in the first place are the more hardcore, or Z1-type enthusiasts, as you say. Chances are the meek have never even beaten 2cd-quest, let alone the 3th or 4th (Someone had to say it.)

Well we do need quests packed with ZC that will appeal to everyone so I guess that means we need a new quest contest/project whether 5th happens or not.

I added some poll options. If you voted already I can add a tick for you on the new options if you like.

SUCCESSOR wrote:Well we do need quests packed with ZC that will appeal to everyone.

This definitely has some merit, though as Glenn pointed out - file size can become an issue. "Epic" quests can typically weigh in at about 5-10 Megabytes nowadays, and even the DoR tileset, for example, by itself is over 1MB as even a 1.92 .qst file. Keeping SFX in check will help a bit, but it's something we need to consider.

I think we had the right idea with neofirst, at least in the beginning (not sure what happened there, maybe @ShadowTiger can enlighten us?) - it was a quest to showcase all the new features of zc, sort of like demo quest did back in the day, where content was contributed by ZC's best (I think Shoelace designed the forest dungeon for example). Like I said, I don't know what happened, but at some point _L_ was the only person working on it, and the "community content" part of it was suddenly no more.

It also may be possible to combine all of the previous ideas not related to the 5th quest into one idea (a Voltron quest lol) and create neofirst-part duck (2). (Hey, sequels are usually always better, right?)
Essentially it'd have a crew of designers, scripters, and contributers to keep it running, organize the graphics and quest data, and just generally not from blowing up,. However, content could all be community driven.
It could have 5 levels where, each level is hashed out, scripts and mechanics are written and planned out before-hand for mandatory use, and we have "best dungeon" contests. (One LV is much less pressure than an entire quest.)
Things like bosses and mini-bosses would be scripted before hand also, so those rooms could be left blank by entrants.

So in summation: it would be a combination organized/community/contest based quest.

I like the idea of making a new 'template' world and then reinventing the classic Zelda vibe with the whole "Same Overworld, new Interiors". It gives us the power to package a new 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quest while still allowing players that struggle with the more difficult quests (myself included, 2nd was INTENSE and I never even touched 3rd) to enjoy some of the new content.

In this case, the contest should be as Gleeok described: pre-fabricated mechanics with dungeons as the primary submissions. It would need to be handled in several contests, each for a single dungeon in this official 'new 1st' and each explicitly stating which items could and could not be used in the dungeon. As for the overworld, players could post screenshots of overworld screens that they'd like to include, and the project director could then recreate those screens in the quest file.

Another strategy could be the fact that you could do each level one at a time and have a contest for each: If a person wins a level, then they can't submit for any other level, same goes for the overworld.

Is that any good?

-James

Gleeok wrote: Anything close to Z3 ALTTP is realistically just way too much work for anyone to do.

The scrolling aspects and everything else is done if using modded ghost.z and my last quest I shared for a Z3 style quest... I would love to see some (more) submissions using that. I understand that my system was top-notch pert near though and that many people wouldn't be able to use it.
Aside from that neo-first looked great to me when I was looking at that thread although I haven't checked out the quest file myself. I'd like to see that done, and also 5th quest and another custom contest. I voted for neo-first.

isSolidScroll should work for a CanWalkScroll, which is all ghost would need to be modded.